Williams Campaign Rally March 24

The Williams Campaign is Baaaack

As many 350Brooklyners well know, in 2017 the Williams energy company of Tulsa, Oklahoma proposed to lay a fracked gas under the waters off Staten Island, Brooklyn, and the Rockaways. While New York State denied Williams a key permit last May, Williams immediately reapplied. NYS’s next (and hopefully final) decision must be issued now later than this coming May 17. Meanwhile, National Grid, the sole customer for this fracked gas, reacted to the DEC decision by imposing a moratorium on new gas hookups, claiming it couldn’t guarantee supply. Cuomo called National Grid’s bluff and it was forced to lift the moratorium. As part of the settlement National Grid agreed to draft a long- term plan for gas supply, hold public meetings, and then publish a final report.

Well, the draft report came out last week and, to no one’s surprise, it calls for a robust expansion of gas use in National Grid’s service areas. This is an absurd situation—National Grid should not be planning our energy future. We—everyone who worked to pass powerful climate change legislation last spring in Albany and NYC—are doing just fine planning our energy future. Nonetheless, National Grid has scheduled six meetings in March to “inform” us about its plans and to “let us” ask questions of their experts. More info here. ( https://www.stopthewilliamspipeline.org/events.)

One of those meetings will be on Tuesday, March 24 in Downtown Brooklyn: https://www.facebook.com/events/2588043601408978/ Let’s have 350Brookyn turn out in force!